Is there any Django-esque PHP framework I can use?

Question

I really love working with Django and Python, when I go back to PHP I feel lugered/restricted... I tried Zend/Kohana/CodeIgniter/CakePHP but none of them are really as nice...

Does anyone know of some php framework that's heavily influenced by Django? Or at least the templating system?

Answer 1

maybe CakePHP?

Answer 2

There is also Akelos Framework which is described as Rails in PHP. Django is not Rails, but they are quite similar: MVC (MVT in Django), nice ORM, migrations (in case of Django You have to use an external tool) etc., so maybe Akelos would fit You.

Edit: I've just found Pluf.

The site says:

Simple, elegant and easy for people used to Django but in PHP5 so easy to deploy all over the world.

I have never tried it so I cannot recommend it or not.

Edit2: If You are looking for template system You may try Open Power Template. Some of the features:

Advanced support for declarative programming - tell, what you want to see, not how it is supposed to work.

Blocks - easy-to-write instructions evaluated at runtime.

Components - creating HTML forms with templates never was so easy.

Smart HTML escaping and XSS filtering syntax techniques.

Answer 3

For the templating subpart of your question, Django's templating system is actually very similar to (and possibly inspired by) the Smarty template engine.

Smarty turned into a monstrosity of tens of thousands of lines of code, however, and so in response Template Lite was created, though I think nowadays Smarty is trying to improve their performance.

I know Kohana can use nearly any template engine (though some of the helpers may not be available); I am not familiar enough with any of the other PHP frameworks to say definitively about those.

Answer 4

Look into QCodo. It's completely OO, with a good templating system, a solid ORM, i18n support, and a code generator which analyzes your database and generates all of your CRUD functionality. It allows for rapid web application development on a whole different level than the other PHP frameworks. Don't bother if you're a procedural coder or weak on your object oriented programming skills.

Answer 5

If you have the option for php 5.3..

http://lithify.me/

(Previously CakePHP 3)

I believe Symfony has a Django like template component.. but I cannot say for sure as I never used Django before :)

http://www.symfony-project.org/

Answer 6

I just decided on hosting my client's application on my server instead of doing it in PHP.